A PIl in the Supreme Court has sought prosecution of heads of top internet companies Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, AOl, Apple, YouTube and Skype for unlawfully leaking sensitive data relating to 6.3 million Indian users to US intelligence agency.
A former National Security Agency (NSA) officer revealed earlier this month about how the leading internet companies had disclosed sensitive data relating to Indian users to US intelligence agency without taking consent of the users. The disclosure was part of a secret project PRISM launched in 2007. Such mass scale surveillance by US agency was facilitated by Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, which were the first to provide the details.
In June 2009, Facebook joined PRISM to share data with NSA followed by PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOl and Apple. Seeking prosecution of heads of all the above companies for breaching the privacy and confidentiality of the Indian users, the petition filed by a former Delhi University law Faculty Dean SN Singh urged the Court to take immediate steps to safeguard data of Indian users and sensitive Government records stored electronically with foreign companies having their servers outside India.
The petition also raised important questions of law. It said that computer data and emails is ‘record’ under the Public Records Act 1993 and cannot be stored or transferred outside India. Virtually all foreign companies operating internet services have their servers outside the country and this posed threat to the secrecy of the public records, which is governed by the Official Secrets Act.
The petition filed by advocate Rajeev Kumar Singh gave further ground for the Court to interfere by stating that under the Information Technology Act, electronic records have legal sanctity and thus digital agreements of internet companies with Indian users are valid enforceable contracts.
With the disclosure having caught the Indian Government napping, the petition sought steps to safeguard sensitive and private information of Indian users stored with foreign internet companies. Terming it as data theft, the petition said, “Sovereignty of the nation is at stake because no penal action has been taken by the respondent (Centre) against the culprit internet companies.”